HURLBURT FIELD — After months of preparation, the 1st Special Operations Wing and 720th Special Tactics Group has earned an overall grade of excellent during their first consolidated unit inspection.

“I could not be any more proud than I am right now,” Col. Jim Slife, commander of the 1st SOW, said in a news release issued Wednesday. “This was an absolute home run as far as I’m concerned.”

He said he has been through six operational readiness exercises and this is the best force he’s ever seen.

More than 200 Air Force Inspector General employees evaluated the wing and group between Feb. 11 and March 5 to assess their readiness and ability to conduct combat operations.

Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, told about 300 airmen gathered at Hurlburt on Monday that the excellent grade indicates they exceeded mission requirements, the news release said.

Wing and group personnel prepared for the inspection for the past year while also fulfilling mission requirements.

“We put a lot of demands on your time, both personal and family time with your friends, to do training and go do an exercise and deployments,” Fiel said.

The last Hurlburt inspection was in 2006, the news release said.

The inspection process was revamped in 2010.

Fiel said the inspection’s intent was to make sure the units can perform all mission-essential tasks, not specifically those geared toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“A lot of mission-essential task lists we’ve been doing for the past 12 years have been solely focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, but there’s been much more in there, too,” he said. “That was the intent of the inspection, to make sure we can do all those mission-essential tasks, and you all did an absolutely fabulous job.”